christopher price

Guess the only question now is figuring out who presents Jimmy Garoppolo for induction in Canton.

That’s obviously a bit premature -- Zach Sudfeld, Bam Childress and Taylor Price can tell you that a great August doesn’t always translate to a good September. But there’s no arguing that the rookie quarterback was impressive in his professional debut Thursday night against the Redskins. He finished 9-for-13 for 153 yards and a touchdown pass, and he didn’t look overwhelmed in the slightest.

“I did all right -- there’s a lot of stuff to improve on,” Garoppolo told reporters after the game. “It’s a process. For any rookie quarterback, there is a lot to learn from, and we will go watch the tape tomorrow and fix those things.

“I mean, it’s still football,” he added. “At the end of the day, it is 100 yards long, 53 [yards] wide, so you just have to go out there and play football. You can’t overthink it, really.”

Garoppolo, the 62nd overall pick in the 2014 draft, came within four yards of engineering a scoring drive on his first chance. While there was some question as to whether or not Bill Belichick should have challenged a call on a pass play that could have gone for a touchdown, New England came up short when it couldn’t execute a successful fourth-down opportunity. That was followed up by another nice sequence, one that was stopped when rookie running back Stephen Houston fumbled. But he was able to get the Patriots into the end zone with a late scoring drive when he found Brian Tyms with a 26-yard scoring strike for the first touchdown of his career.

No matter how the novel ends, you can’t write the story of Garoppolo’s first summer in a New England uniform without including Tyms. (Maybe he’s the one who gives the speech at the ceremony? After all, Tyms might be the closest thing to a walking, talking Disney movie.) The two have developed some sort of chemistry together -- inevitably over the first two weeks of camp, whenever Garoppolo managed to complete a pass, it was Tyms who was on the other end. On Thursday, five of the nine passes Garoppolo completed went to Tyms, and the receiver out of Florida A&M finished with five catches for 119 yards and a touchdown.

When compared to the work of Ryan Mallett -- who got the start and was underwhelming, finishing 5-for-12 for 55 yards and a sack -- Garoppolo was impressive. At the same time, it’s important to note that a sizable amount of Mallett’s work came against a reasonable facsimile of the Redskins’ No. 1 and No. 2 defense, while Garoppolo was running around out there making plays most of the time against guys who might as well have had triple digits on their jerseys they were buried so far down the depth chart.

But in the NFL -- especially at the quarterback position -- it’s all about taking advantage of the opportunities that are presented to you. With that in mind, Garoppolo seized the moment. The rookie, who had looked overwhelmed over much of the first two weeks of camp, didn’t appear to be fazed by much when he hit the field against the Redskins. He managed the game well, threw the ball away when necessary and rebounded well when he was faced with adversity.

Most importantly, Garoppolo successfully executed a series of different passes, working with a variety of targets on short and intermediate routes, as well as the occasional deep ball. He was able to display a nice consistency when it came to making passes on all three levels, something that Mallett has struggled with several times over the course of his career.

In truth, you could make an argument that Garoppolo’s performance was the best of any rookie quarterback making his initial preseason start in New England, at least since Brady took over the starting job in 2001. Here’s a look at how the team's first-year signal-callers have done in their preseason debuts since 2002.

For the record, Brady went 3-for-4 for 28 yards in his preseason debut -- the 2000 Hall of Fame Game in Canton.

Ultimately, Garoppolo has a long way to go. But the rookie certainly showed more in the game Thursday night than he had to any point over the course of training camp. Now, he needs to be able to take that performance and develop some consistency in the coming days, starting with the upcoming joint practices against the Eagles. If he’s able to do that, then, the Patriots might really have something.

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